Facebook rolls back nicer News Feed that boosted mainstream publishers

Facebook has reversed a change to its News Feed algorithm that prioritized authoritative news sources, even though some employees asked that the “nicer” News Feed become permanent, according to The New York Times.

Following a sharp increase in misinformation on the platform in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 US presidential election, Facebook changed how it weighed the quality of news sources based on a “news ecosystem quality” (NEQ) score. Outlets including the Times, NPR, and CNN saw Facebook traffic rise, while more partisan sites that published incendiary or misleading news about the election saw Facebook traffic decrease.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg had authorized the change to the News Feed in the days after the election when it...

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